NAFTA of the North American Free Trade Association was created in 1989 between Canada and the United States. On January 1, 1994 it was expanded to include Mexico. This created the largest free trade zone in the world. Upon creation it immediately eliminated half of the trade barriers among the countries. It made a plan to phase out the remaining barriers over the next fifteen years. Like all organizations there are both supporting and opposing views to NAFTA.
Supporting
· It creates thousands of jobs
· By trading and improving the economy it raises the standard of living in Canada, the United States and Mexico
· It improves environmental standards
· It improves the employment standards
· It is helping Mexico to become a more developed and prominent country on a world scale
Opposing
· It causes the wages in all of the countries to decrease
· It means that factories will leave the US and Canada to go to Mexico where they can pay lower wages and have worse working conditions
· Canada and the US are using Mexico; there is little or no benefit for Mexico
Example
An example of one of the downsides of NAFTA is that a lot of jobs and factories leave the US and Canada to go to Mexico. In the Mexican factories or maquiladoras the workers get paid very low wages and many of the health and environmental standards are undermined. This means that all of the countries in NAFTA are affected negatively by this aspect of the free trade agreement.
The text agreement: http://www.international.gc.ca/nafta-alena/agree-en.asp
Supporting
· It creates thousands of jobs
· By trading and improving the economy it raises the standard of living in Canada, the United States and Mexico
· It improves environmental standards
· It improves the employment standards
· It is helping Mexico to become a more developed and prominent country on a world scale
Opposing
· It causes the wages in all of the countries to decrease
· It means that factories will leave the US and Canada to go to Mexico where they can pay lower wages and have worse working conditions
· Canada and the US are using Mexico; there is little or no benefit for Mexico
Example
An example of one of the downsides of NAFTA is that a lot of jobs and factories leave the US and Canada to go to Mexico. In the Mexican factories or maquiladoras the workers get paid very low wages and many of the health and environmental standards are undermined. This means that all of the countries in NAFTA are affected negatively by this aspect of the free trade agreement.
The text agreement: http://www.international.gc.ca/nafta-alena/agree-en.asp